Epicureanism about Death and Immortality Author(s): John Martin Fischer Source: The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 355-381 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115869 . Accessed: 24/02/2011 13:14 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer. 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Here I seek to defend the commonsense view that death can be a bad thing for an individual against the Epicurean; I also defend the claim that immortality might conceivably be a good thing. In the development of my analysis, I make certain connections between the literatures on free will and death. The intersection of these two literatures can be illuminated by reference to my notion, of a Dialectical Stalemate. KEY WORDS: David Suits, death, Dialectical Stalemate, Epicurus, Free Will, harm, immortality, Martha Nussbaum, Steven Hetherington I want to live forever: but just what is it that I thereby want? Prior to 1874 (or thereabouts) my want would have seemed quite clear: I would have wanted to live - for an unending sequence of years, one year for each natural number an omega sequence of years. But our horizon has since been expanded by the teachings of Georg Cantor. The natural numbers all together amount only to the smallest order of infinity, aleph-null. There are countess greater infinities that dwarf aleph null as surely as aleph-null dwarfs our customarily allotted three score and ten. Why settle for a piddling aleph-null years if there are limit cardinals out there to vault over, inaccessible cardinals waiting to be surpassed? ... trans-omega longevity is (conceptually) possible: there are possible worlds that endure beyond a single omega-sequence of years, and a person can survive in these worlds from one omega-sequence to another. ... I want trans-omega longevity, but not at any cost. Wanting to live beyond a sin gle omega-sequence of years is, for me, a conditional want, as is wanting to live to be 100. Both wants are conditional, at the very least, upon my still having my wits about me, and upon there still being a fair balance of pleasure over pain. In claiming that trans-omega longevity is desirable, I claim only that there is some possible world, even if quite remote from our own, in which I have trans-omega existence and the above conditions are satisfied. Some, it is true, have argued that such The Journal of Ethics (2006) 10:355-381 ? Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/S10892-006-9004-1 356 JOHN MARTIN FISCHER conditions could never be satisfied even for ordinary immortality because a life too long inevitably leads to perpetual boredom. I suspect that those who argue in this way either lack imagination or become too quickly jaded with the good things in life... [Phillip Bricker, "On Living Forever" (presented at The American Philosophical Association, March, 1985)] 1. Introduction Epicureans take seriously Boethius' thought that philosophy has its consolations. In her important work on Hellenistic philosophy, Martha Nussbaum has offered an interpretation of Hellenistic philosophy according to the "medical model."1 On this approach, philosophy is not a neutral, detached methodology, but a way of helping us to grapple with problems that otherwise would confuse and distress us. Philosophy, then, is a kind of therapy. Nussbaum both attributes this view to Epicurus and his followers (such as the Roman philosopher, Lucretius) and also endorses it. The Hellenistic philosophers sought to apply their philosophical therapy to such issues as the fear of death, the nature and mysteries of love, sexuality, and potentially unruly emotions, such as anger. Here I shall focus on Nussbaum's reconstruction, interpretation, and defense of Lucretius's "main argument" that it is irrational to fear death.2 I shall also offer some reflections on what she calls the "banquet argument" of Lucretius. According to this argument, we should realize that life is like a banquet: "it has a structure in time that reaches a natural and appropriate termination."3 Here I wish briefly to add to my previous defense of the thesis that immortality would not necessarily be unattractive.4 1 Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Martha Nussbaum, "Reply to Papers in Symposium on Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (1999), pp. 811-819. 2 The main argument is laid out in Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, pp. 201-202. I make a preliminary stab at discussing these matters in John Martin Fischer, "Contribution to Symposium on Nussbaum's The Therapy of Desire" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (1999), pp. 787-792. 3 The 203. 4 Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, p. John Martin Fischer, "Why Immortality isNot So Bad," International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2 (1994), pp. 257-270; and Fischer, "Contribution to Symposium on Nussbaunrs The Therapy of Desire." EPICUREANISM ABOUT DEATH AND IMMORTALITY 357 In my view, philosophy is a perfectly neutral device. It can be employed by those who seek reassurance and freedom from anxiety. It can also increase confusion and perplexity. Even at its best, itmay reveal puzzles and problems of which we were previously unaware. Of course, it is always up to us how exactly we use the deliverances of theoretical reasoning. It is not a good idea to ruminate excessively on insoluble - dilemmas a sensible view that would be endorsed, presumably, by - practical philosophy or to allow them to dampen our spirits. But itmay be that philosophy shows us, what we feared inchoately, that, as Thomas Nagel puts it, "...a bad end is in store for us all."5 2. The Main Argument and Previous Discussion Nussbaum presents Lucretius' main argument as follows: 1. An event can be good or bad for someone only if, at the time when the event is present, that person exists as a subject of at least possible experience, so that it is at least possible that the person experiences the event. 2. The time after a person dies is a time at which that person does not exist as a subject of possible experience. 3. Hence the condition of being dead is not bad for that person. 4. It is irrational to fear a future event unless that event, when it comes, will be bad for one. 5. It is irrational to fear death.6 Nussbaum points out that Thomas Nagel has rejected the first premise of the main argument, because of its insistence on a connection between badness and experience. Nagel offers two examples. The first involves an individual who is betrayed behind his back; even though the individual never comes to know about this betrayal (or, let us say, experience any unpleasant consequences of it), Nagel contends that the betrayal can be a bad thing for the individual. In the second example, a person loses all higher mental functioning in an accident (or as a result of a stroke); this is alleged by Nagel to be a loss for the person, even if the individual is now7 (after 5 Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 1-10; reprinted in John Martin Fischer (ed.), The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 61-69. The quotation is on p. 69 of the reprinted version. 6 Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire, pp. 201-202. 358 JOHN MARTIN FISCHER the accident) contented. On Nagel's view, death is bad for the individual who dies not in virtue of involving unpleasant experiences, but insofar as it is a deprivation of the good things in life (the "deprivation thesis about death's badness"). Nussbaum disagrees: ... Nagel does not make it clear exactly how an event located completely outside a life's temporal span diminishes the life itself. The cases he actually analyzes are not by themselves sufficient to show this, since in each of them a subject persists, during the time of the bad event, who has at least a strong claim to be identical with the subject to whom the bad event is a misfortune. In the betrayal case, this subject is clearly the very same, and is a subject of possible, if not actual, experi ence in relation to that event. In the second case, it is hard not to feel that the continued existence of the damaged person, who is continuous with and very plau sibly identical with the former adult, gives the argument that the adult has suffered a loss at least part of its force.